The present invention relates to a fixing material for gaseous hydrocarbon for efficiently fixing gaseous hydrocarbon; to a method of preparing the same; and to a method of fixing gaseous hydrocarbon by using the fixing material.
As the scale of petrochemical industry and natural gas industry is enlarging year by year and mass production and mass consumption of organic compounds are conducted for organic compound, environmental pollution and accidents threatening the existence of human beings and living things, such as large fires and explosions attributable to accidents in various chemical factories, petrochemical complexes, tankers, trucking, pipelines and the like, occur frequently worldwide. Accordingly safe handling and suitable treating during transportation or storage of organic compounds including petrochemical materials, particularly gaseous hydrocarbon are critical problems. One of fundamental measures against these explosions, fires and leakage accidents is that a large amount of gaseous hydrocarbon and mixtures thereof handled in various chemical industries, petrochemical complexes and trucking and storage facilities are converted into safe solids and returned if necessary to the original gaseous one. It is thought that by conversion thereof into safe solids easy to handle, many accidents would be prevented, and huge and often dangerous storage facilities, pipelines, trucking, freezing or thermally insulating facilities could be significantly modified.
In consideration of these aspects, there is demand for development of a method wherein a wide variety of gaseous hydrocarbon and mixed gas handled in various chemical factories, petrochemical complexes and trucking and storage facilities are fixed easily and converted into safe solids, and then returned if necessary to the original gaseous hydrocarbon. Conversion of gaseous hydrocarbon into other safe materials by a certain chemical reaction does not solve the problem, and a method accompanying chemical reaction should be avoided.
Accordingly, a method of solidifying gaseous hydrocarbon as it is by a physicochemical means is considered most preferable.
The requirements for a material for solidifying gaseous hydrocarbon include (1) gaseous hydrocarbon can be fixed and solidified easily at low temperatures without damaging reaction units in a factory, and from the solidified complex, the original gaseous hydrocarbon can be easily recovered, and further the recovered fixing material can be used through recycling, (2) the material is chemically relatively stable, and (3) the material is supposed to be used in a large quantities, and should thus be a safe and nontoxic substance, and even if the material flows outside of the reaction unit and hardly recovered, the material itself is least dangerous to living things in the environment and to the environment.
Such physicochemical adsorbing materials are still not put to practical use, and there are few proposals including those at the experimental stage.
The present invention resides in a material for fixing gaseous hydrocarbon, which comprises fibrous crystal aggregates formed by precipitating by making a metal aliphatic carboxylate dissolve completely in pure water to give a solution, stirring, and gradually cooling the solution.
Further, the present invention resides in a material for fixing gaseous hydrocarbon, which comprises fibrous crystal aggregates formed by precipitating by making a metal aliphatic carboxylate dissolve completely in pure water to give a solution, adding an aqueous solution of an inorganic salt containing the same metal as in the metal aliphatic carboxylate, stirring, and gradually cooling the solution.
Further, the present invention resides in a method of solidifying gaseous hydrocarbon, which comprises the step of: fixing gaseous hydrocarbon, by using the fixing material comprising fibrous crystal aggregates as described above.
Further, the present invention resides in a method of solidifying gaseous hydrocarbon, which comprises the steps of: heating a solidified complex containing fixed gaseous hydrocarbon, obtained by the method described above, to decompose and separate the fixed material into its original metal aliphatic carboxylate and gaseous hydrocarbon; and recovering them.
Further, the present invention resides in a method of preparing a material for fixing gaseous hydrocarbon, which comprises the steps of: making a metal aliphatic carboxylate dissolve completely in pure water to give a solution; stirring; and gradually cooling the solution, thereby precipitating as fibrous crystal aggregates.
Further, the present invention resides in a method of preparing a material for fixing gaseous hydrocarbon, which comprises the steps of: making a metal aliphatic carboxylate dissolve completely in pure water to give a solution; adding an aqueous solution of an inorganic salt containing the same metal as in the metal aliphatic carboxylate; stirring; and gradually cooling the solution, thereby precipitating as fibrous crystal aggregates.
Other and further features and advantages of the invention will appear more fully from the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.